Blundering Gardener: So many plants, so little space

Last week, I'd barely begun to list my favorite plants when I ran out of room. My long-suffering editor kindly suggested we save the second half of the list for this week. Here it is:

Hardy show-stoppers in the woody-plant category are "Wentworth" viburnums -- it's the shiny red berries -- and "Tiger Eyes" sumac and a false spirea called "Sem," which has sumaclike foliage and creamy-white flower spikes.

I was unimpressed with "Summer Wine" until its slender branches grew so tall they toppled forward under their own weight. This reddish-bronze shrub grows beneath a Prairie Fire crabapple tree between a Russian sage and a tall rugosa rose with deep-pink flowers. It's such a lovely combination you'd think I planned it.

I love hydrangeas. Pink Diamond is my latest crush because it has lace-cap flowers and keeps blooming late into the fall. Climbing hydrangea is an exceptionally beautiful shade-loving vine, handsome in every season.

Another pretty vine I use a lot, partly because it self-seeds everywhere and its lime-green foliage is a bonus, is hops. Make sure you have a boy-girl pair, or you won't get the Chinese-lantern-like flowers.

The clematis clan is full of athletes whose delicate beauty tricks you into underestimating them. I've come to prefer the smaller-flowered types. Many of these are fragrant.

Clematis recta is a shrub that can be trained as a vine and grows like a weed, self-seeds, smells incredible and produces a snowy-white fringe of bloom all summer.

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It has adorable seed heads, too.

Grasses are an acquired taste. You have to use them properly. Like tulips, all-in-a-row is not the way to go. Karl Foerster feather reed grass may be ubiquitous, but plant it among late-blooming prairie natives and tell me you still don't get like it.

Hakonechloa macra "Aureola" is a spectacular chartreuse-colored low-mounding grass that can be grown singly or in groups and does well in partial shade.

Penstemon took its sweet time winning me over, but "Husker Red" will gracefully accompany me into old age. The "red" is in reference to its leaf color. The flowers are white and shaped like tiny tongues, hence, I assume, the common name, beardtongue.

Siberian iris and toad lilies had me at hello. So did Virginia bluebells, which came with the garden when I bought my grandmother's house. Also, bleeding heart in spring and Japanese anemones in fall. Both these plants have either pink or white flowers. The choice is impossible to make. I grow both.

Shade-loving dwarf goatsbeard and sun-loving yarrow are both native, which earns big points. What else do they have in common? Both have feathers for leaves and are as tough as nails in spite of it.

Sedums look as durable as they are. They're succulents and resemble rubber and have been dear to me ever since a friend gave me some of her "Autumn Joy" and said, "You can't kill this."

Then there are the creeping sedums -- Dragon's Blood, Angelina, S. kamtschaticum (the variegated one). And the Sempervivum, hens and chicks.

Anything with a Mediterranean feel is catnip to me. That includes most herbs (especially thyme, rosemary, lavender and sage) and such herblike perennials as catmint, Russian sage and allium.

Have you grown the Egyptian walking onion? You must.

I love peonies but wish they lasted longer, like baptisia. My favorite is still the original blue-flowered B. australis.

I grow lots of heucheras but only became devoted to them once I figured out that they must have perfect drainage and partial shade, which is not always the easiest combination. The breeders keep coming up with dazzling foliage varieties. I still love old-fashioned coral bells. Look for "Autumn Bride." Its creamy flowers grow on tall spikes in late summer and fall. Its soft pale-green foliage reminds me of lady's mantle, another indispensable perennial, whose scalloped leaves capture a drop of rain and hold it. Lady's mantle is a modest, mounding plant with exquisite grace.

I must mention hosta. It was the first plant I grew. A neighbor donated several dozen to me as a housewarming gift. I planted them to be polite. Eventually I discovered that not all hostas have big, floppy green leaves. To tell you my favorites would fill another column.

And finally, houseplants. By that I mean the fancy-leaved begonias most of all. I love them so much I can't bear to let them die. They keep me company all winter.

THIS WEEK'S TO-DO LIST

-- Marla Spivak, keynote speaker at Blooming St. Paul this week, reminded listeners that bees need copious amounts of nectar and pollen to survive. These come from flowering plants -- but not all flowering plants. Check out her BeeLab website (beelab.umn.edu) for planting suggestions. Design a bee-friendly garden this spring.

-- Blooming St. Paul loves gardens but also honors trees. Be looking for its list of this year's Landmark Trees. An incredibly beautiful white pine on the 1600 block of Portland Avenue looks just as spectacular now as it does in the summer. If you're in the neighborhood, check it out.